Joshua Mutchler

‘And then they dance’ – 2010

“At a greater distance there is a perception of a merging of the local with the distant.”

A single blob of colour on its own means nothing. Yet acquire enough and a whole image is created. Halftone technique, varying the size of the dots to simulate a change in tone, is really an illusion. But the dots are normally small enough to appear as continuous colour. All of this applies to a flat surface.
The transparent colours, displaying no thickness, sit on the perfectly flat page overlaying each other and create different colours. The archetypal perfectly flat image. But the dots don’t have to be small nor do they have to be 2 dimensional. Size is relative and here large dots have their own presence. And when interacting with others acquire a level of complexity. Close up there appears to be very little connection between the units. At a greater distance there is a perception of a merging of the local with the distant. New connections are made, shapes start to insinuate themselves.

Thinking about flatness made me wonder what it might look like if these images had volume, even if that volume was simulated. Strangely, even with 3D renders flatness is maintained.
I have to admit I did this backwards. Starting with the image then recreating it in 3 dimensions on a computer. In the 3D examples here the units are rendered less transparent.